Stuck for ideas on how to keep your child amused during the summer holidays? Well don't sweat. Kids Week 2009 kicks off from August 14th to the 28th and gives you the opportunity to let your child see a theatre show for free, plus join in workshops and other creative events.

For a trip to the theatre during Kids Week, as long as your child is accompanied by an adult paying full price for their ticket, there is no price charged for theirs. But don't worry if you have other children tagging along, you can purchase up to two extra tickets for half price. Bargain!

Children aged five to sixteen have a choice of 28 different shows, workshops and events to see or take part in over the week.

For the under-fives, Kids Week offers the chance to see the brilliant children's book "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" come to life. The event will see the children involved in role play through mud fights, splashing water and swishing grass. Performances have been spread across three days with at least two showings taking part each day.

I know it's the summer holidays, and school may be the last thing on your mind, but there is one educational establishment that you may be interested to know about: Organic farm school.

There's no better way to get children interested in healthy eating than to get them involved from the start in preparing and cooking their own meals. Daylesford Organic Farm School in Gloucestershire takes things a step further back, by looking at where the food we eat comes from in the first place.

They offer a range of courses (supported by the Soil Association) looking at everything from gardening, to how to keep bees and hens (clue: not in the same hutch).

In July the school taught Butter Making for Children, and now their latest course focuses on baking. Since the thought of baking at home with children still brings me out in the hairy hives, the fact that all of this happens at the farm school is A Good Thing.

A trip to the beach can see you loaded up like a pack horse -- picnic plus rug, towels, suncream, bucket and spade. But there's also something else you might want to take: hand gel.

Chances are if you've got kids you've probably already got a bottle of the "no towel needed" gel for those trips to public toilets and cafes.

But now parents are being advised to pack a bottle when they go to the beach too after an American study discovered that children who play in the sand, and particularly those that like burying themselves in it, are more likely to go home with a stomach bug.

Parents shouldn't panic though, part of the fun of going to the beach is digging in the sand and burying siblings. Following your common sense will help to ensure the only thing you end up taking home from the beach is sand, and the odd shell.

So, right on cue at the start of the summer holidays, the rain comes. Stuck indoors and feeling the pressure to entertain? Something impressive, constructive, minimum effort, maximum results? Look no further than good old fashioned paper.

There a fantastic truckload of resources at your finger tips for even those with absolutely no arts and crafts know-how. They'll bag you major 'wow' points with the kids for managing something rather more impressive than a paper aeroplane. And they're all free. Simply print, cut and fold...

Patterns for Colouring is a regularly updated blog featuring free downloadable funked-up patterns to colour in, by top notch graphic designer Carton Hibbert. He was inspired to create the library of patterns following a lifetime's love of colouring, and two small boys to keep entertained and away from computer games.

Marshall Alexander is a Dutch 'paper engineer' (see image above) who provides a host of groovy monsters and creatures to print, cut and fold into 3-D models.